As Hong Kong is stripped of its autonomy and special status, how will the next chapter play out?
While the international community cannot shape the ultimate outcome, it can still create an atmosphere that leads Beijing to take a more cautious approach in implementing the national security law
Hongkongers should continue making the economic case for the city’s freedoms with the aim of ensuring a smooth transition rather than a tragedy
In May 2012, as the contest for power among China’s top political elite was heating up to see who would succeed president Hu Jintao, I went looking for insight in one of Beijing’s best bookstores, All Sage Books, which sits just outside the campus of Tsinghua University.
But I found nothing of the sort. Its top 10 titles that week were from the poetry, history and calligraphy sections. The Chinese politics section was limited to the selected works of top leaders, texts of recent laws, formal descriptions of China’s government institutions, and whitewashed histories of the Communist Party. Even a politics junkie like me could not get excited with such empty propaganda.
By good luck, the same week I took a trip down to Hong Kong, and upon arrival, made my way to Cosmos Books on Johnston Road. Heaven! Right in the middle of the store were stacks of detailed accounts of the public and private lives of Xi Jinping, his nemesis Bo Xilai, Bo’s wife Gu Kailai, and many others. Sure, they mixed facts with unsubstantiated rumours, but their authors had little to go on, given the system’s opacity.
This is my personal metric of whether “ one country, two systems” is fully functioning. The website of Cosmos still carries titles on the 1989 protests, Xi and Communist Party history. You can even find a translation of Peter Navarro and Greg Autry’s Death by China, far from my favourite, but nevertheless a reassuring sign.
That said, it is clear the tide is turning. The apparent rendition in 2015 into mainland China of the owners of another bookstore not far from Cosmos, including Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, has raised reasonable doubts about whether Hongkongers should feel safe to research, write, sell, buy and discuss books in public on highly sensitive topics.
02:22
Hong Kong freedoms will not be eroded by Beijing’s national security law, Carrie Lam says
Hong Kong freedoms will not be eroded by Beijing’s national security law, Carrie Lam says
The news from the National People’s Congress that Beijing will soon adopt a national security law for Hong Kong turns those doubts into a certainty that things are fundamentally changing.
Previous leaders in Beijing grudgingly allowed a vibrant civil society and civil liberties, perhaps recognising how Hong Kong’s open politics fuelled its prosperity and facilitated the city serving as a bridge to the West.
But Xi has declared that the Communist Party must be in charge of everything, and the party sees Hong Kong’s openness as a path to its own subversion and demise.
Through changes in central elements of the city’s governance – the electoral system for the chief executive, the national security law and extradition bill – and Beijing’s demonisation of its critics, China’s leadership has replaced the original expectation that a hybrid system could last indefinitely with a sense of dread that the arrival of 2047 is imminent. As a result, hard-hitting political tracts may become as rare as toilet paper in an American grocery store.
03:06
Hong Kong police fire pepper rounds at protesters opposing national anthem law
Hong Kong police fire pepper rounds at protesters opposing national anthem law
It’s also fair to expect, by the end of this decade, the decline and withering of independent political parties, street protests, impartial courts, a free media, an open internet, critical arts, liberal education and autonomous religious organisations. All that might remain of current society is driving on the left, and Beijing could even attack that as a colonial legacy.
There is now near-universal agreement by those watching from afar that Hong Kong is in the midst of being prematurely stripped of its autonomy.
Most believe that there is nothing that can be done to change this ultimate outcome. And so, with the writing on the wall, as Hong Kong loses its special status within China, it is not surprising that the city will no longer be treated as special by others.
That said, how quickly, in what order, and by what means these changes will occur is far from written in stone. Hence, even though the power of the international community may not be able to shape the ultimate outcome, it is well worth trying to affect the pace, sequence and manner in which change occurs.
01:56
Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from China, US determines
Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from China, US determines
American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement that the United States no longer regards Hong Kong as enjoying a high degree of autonomy starts that effort.
This determination means that the US will be prepared to move on two fronts. The first would be to treat Hong Kong like every other Chinese region on the full range of issues, including tariffs, export controls, investment limits, extradition, standards and travel.
The second would be to ready a series of potential financial sanctions directed at the appropriate national and city officials and organisations which have any role in preparing or carrying out violence against Hong Kong protesters or depriving them of their rights under the Basic Law.
While teeing up such measures is understandable, Washington should hold off taking specific actions, such as applying the same tariffs and export control rules on Hong Kong that cover the rest of China or freezing bank accounts, until after the national security law is actually adopted and the US and others can observe how it is being implemented.
This allows such measures to serve as a deterrent, particularly if other countries join the US. But if the US acts precipitously, it could generate the opposite of what it intends, with Beijing concluding it had nothing to lose by accelerating its clampdown.
Given Xi’s playbook, the chances of this story becoming a tragedy are high. However, by being clear about their bottom line but flexible in applying specific measures, the international community can create an atmosphere that leads Beijing to take a more cautious and constructive approach.
At the same time, Hongkongers can make the case – on the streets and in the campaign for this autumn’s Legislative Council election – that the city’s autonomy and way of life sustains its economy and is of immense benefit to the rest of China. This may be the only path to a happy next chapter for Hong Kong.
Scott Kennedy is senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC
